City of Atlanta becoming more residential? (Dallas, Buckhead: rent, home, employment)

[arjay57]

I saw some interesting numbers recently indicating that while employment in the city of Atlanta has declined a lot in the past decade (by around 100,000 jobs) the population has grown by approximately 120,000. Ten years ago there were more jobs than residents, whereas now there are many more residents than jobs.

That seems like a pretty significant trend. Nearly 60% of Atlanta residents now work outside the city.

How do y'all see this affecting the character of the city and future transportation needs? Since so many people are now "outbound" I'd think that would make it even more important for the city to be a major part of regional transportation planning.

It also seems to me this is a great opportunity for the city to focus on things like education, livability and quality of life issues.

[waronxmas]

Originally Posted by arjay57

I saw some interesting numbers recently indicating that while employment in the city of Atlanta has declined a lot in the past decade (by around 100,000 jobs) the population has grown by approximately 120,000. Ten years ago there were more jobs than residents, whereas now there are many more residents than jobs.

That seems like a pretty significant trend. Nearly 60% of Atlanta residents now work outside the city.

How do y'all see this affecting the character of the city and future transportation needs? Since so many people are now "outbound" I'd think that would make it even more important for the city to be a major part of regional transportation planning.

It also seems to me this is a great opportunity for the city to focus on things like education, livability and quality of life issues.

Do you have a link to this information?I find it a bit surprising that the employment number in the city would have dropped by 100,000 in 10 years. The economy is bad right now, but not that bad.

As for 10 years ago, the daytime population of the city (676,000) was higher than the resident population (416,000), but half the people working in the city of Atlanta lived in the city and the other half came from the burbs.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by waronxmas

Do you have a link to this information?I find it a bit surprising that the employment number in the city would have dropped by 100,000 in 10 years.

Employment in the city decreased from 475,411 in 2000 to 369,811 in 2009. That's a loss of 105,600 jobs.

During the same period population grew from 420,624 to 540,921. Quite a jump!

-- 171,292 Atlanta residents are in the Workforce
-- 71,270 (41.6%) work in the City of Atlanta
-- 100,022 (58%) work outside of the City of Atlanta

The data is from the City's Bureau of Planning. Take a look particularly at pages 36-40 of the report.

http://www.atlantaga.gov/client_resources/government/planning/cdp/apab%20presentation%20aug%2021%202010.pdf (broken link)

[waronxmas]

Originally Posted by arjay57

Employment in the city decreased from 475,411 in 2000 to 369,811 in 2009. That's a loss of 105,600 jobs.

During the same period population grew from 420,624 to 540,921. Quite a jump!

-- 171,292 Atlanta residents are in the Workforce
-- 71,270 (41.6%) work in the City of Atlanta
-- 100,022 (58%) work outside of the City of Atlanta

The data is from the City's Bureau of Planning. Take a look particularly at pages 36-40 of the report.

http://www.atlantaga.gov/client_resources/government/planning/cdp/apab%20presentation%20aug%2021%202010.pdf (broken link)

Interesting. Thanks for the link.

The two though I don't think are linked. The upward trend of the City of Atlanta's resident population has been in play since the 90s. A lot of that has to do with the city adjusting zoning laws to allow higher density and mixed use developments in certain areas where the laws made that difficult and the boom in high rise living.

It's still interesting though. I wonder what happened with those jobs as the slide started before the recession. Or if they are estimates. Bah! I'll be glad next year when we get actual population data.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by waronxmas

The two though I don't think are linked.

No, I don't think they're linked in any direct causative sense. However, the effect would seem to make the city substantially more residential in character.

Nothing wrong with that of course. As the saying goes, growth typically follows the pattern of rooftops, retail and then jobs.

That's how suburbia became so massive -- historically, the suburbs siphoned off population by offering a higher quality of life. Now, the city has an opportunity to create a quality of life that's sufficient to draw people back. In my opinion that should be the focus of planning in the coming years.

[waronxmas]

Originally Posted by arjay57

No, I don't think they're linked in any direct causative sense. However, the effect would seem to make the city substantially more residential in character.

Nothing wrong with that of course. As the saying goes, growth typically follows the pattern of rooftops, retail and then jobs.

That's how suburbia became so massive -- historically, the suburbs siphoned off population by offering a higher quality of life. Now, the city has an opportunity to create a quality of life that's sufficient to draw people back. In my opinion that should be the focus of planning in the coming years.

Ah, ok. Yes, the story of what's happened to the City of Atlanta in the last 10 years is quite remarkable. Unlike the other sunbelt cities, Altanta followed the same path as cities in the northeast and midwest that had their peak populations (1970 for us), then a large amount of residents left for the burbs. Atlanta, NYC and San Francisco are the only cities where they fell blow their peak population, regained it all, and now surpassed it. Just imagine what the next 20 years will be like now that the Beltline and other projects are moving in to full swing.

[BobKovacs]

It's a tough challenge to grow the number of jobs intown. In decades past, every large company had to be downtown, because you were doing business with the other big companies, and needed proximity (as well as a "status address"). Now that employees are telecommuting, and so much business is conducted via email, videoconference, livemeeting, etc., there's no need to pay top dollar for Class A office space in downtown, when you can rent comparable space in the suburbs for practically 1/2 the price, if you need the space at all.

Without the corporations planting their headquarters there, all of the supporting businesses struggle as well- there's no need for restaurants, dry cleaners, office supply stores, etc., if there's not enough businesses to support them.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by BobKovacs

It's a tough challenge to grow the number of jobs intown. In decades past, every large company had to be downtown, because you were doing business with the other big companies, and needed proximity (as well as a "status address"). Now that employees are telecommuting, and so much business is conducted via email, videoconference, livemeeting, etc., there's no need to pay top dollar for Class A office space in downtown, when you can rent comparable space in the suburbs for practically 1/2 the price, if you need the space at all.

Not to quibble because I agree with you in principle, but just to clarify, the numbers we're talking about are for the whole 132 square miles of the city of Atlanta, not just downtown. That includes the airport, Midtown, Buckhead, industrial areas, schools, shopping centers, fast food joints, etc.

Without the corporations planting their headquarters there, all of the supporting businesses struggle as well- there's no need for restaurants, dry cleaners, office supply stores, etc., if there's not enough businesses to support them.

I'd differ with you on this. I think restaurants, dry cleaners and most other support businesses perform optimally when they draw their customers from residential areas and not just offices. Yes, office workers make a difference, but they represent a transient population.

[waronxmas]

Originally Posted by BobKovacs

It's a tough challenge to grow the number of jobs intown. In decades past, every large company had to be downtown, because you were doing business with the other big companies, and needed proximity (as well as a "status address"). Now that employees are telecommuting, and so much business is conducted via email, videoconference, livemeeting, etc., there's no need to pay top dollar for Class A office space in downtown, when you can rent comparable space in the suburbs for practically 1/2 the price, if you need the space at all.

Without the corporations planting their headquarters there, all of the supporting businesses struggle as well- there's no need for restaurants, dry cleaners, office supply stores, etc., if there's not enough businesses to support them.

I agree with most of what you are saying, and it will be a big challenge in the next few years for all cities to adjust to this new paradigm...especially the New Yorks and Chicagos of the world. I do think though that the prediction of the death of the massive CBD is a bit premature. A lot of professions depend on in person interaction that telecommuting (even via video) doesn't really solve.

Back to the topic at hand, I think found the reason for the employment drop.

On the graph on page 36 of the report linked above, there were two significant drops. The first in 2001-2002 during a recession and the other post 2006...the same year Bellsouth merged with AT&T and the corporate HQ moved to Dallas along with a lot of jobs.

[BobKovacs]

Originally Posted by arjay57

Not to quibble because I agree with you in principle, but just to clarify, the numbers we're talking about are for the whole 132 square miles of the city of Atlanta, not just downtown. That includes the airport, Midtown, Buckhead, industrial areas, schools, shopping centers, fast food joints, etc.

Understood- but midtown, Buckhead, etc., all suffer for the same reason- there's no need to pay the high rents for those areas anymore for a large number of firms that might have had to call those areas home in the past. When I said "downtown" I was speaking generically- not about the specific area we call "downtown Atlanta".

Originally Posted by arjay57

I'd differ with you on this. I think restaurants, dry cleaners and most other support businesses perform optimally when they draw their customers from residential areas and not just offices. Yes, office workers make a difference, but they represent a transient population.

Actually, they need both to do well. Restaurants that cater only to residents won't have much of a lunch crowd, and I was referring to businesses that support businesses- not residents- places like office supply stores, small accounting firms, etc.